Kulunu Jayamanne

Kulunu Jayamanne, from Sri Lanka, is a practitioner within the development sector with nearly 9 years of experience. He is currently the Youth Programme Lead and Coordination and Partnerships Associate, as part of the Strategic Engagement Team at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sri Lanka. He is also part of the core team at the Citra Social Innovation Lab of UNDP.

Within his role, Kulunu takes a lead on UNDP Sri Lanka’s policy and programming on youth, including the HackaDev Programme on Youth Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Youth Empowerment in the Asia and the Pacific Programme in Sri Lanka and others, and leads the effort to build a youth program portfolio for UNDP in Sri Lanka. He was also an instrumental contributor in developing the Youth Programme of UNDP for the Asia and the Pacific Region.

At the Citra Social Innovation Lab, he has extensive experience in institutional strengthening, capacity building and process reengineering work in thematic areas such as public sector modernization and digital transformation. He is also engaged in learning and development and co-design exercises with multiple partners as a facilitative trainer. He is passionate about new ways of doing development and is eager to find ways to move the needle on people and systems for development. His first university degree is a Bachelor of Science with honors in international relations from the London School of Economics at the University of London International Programmes. He is also an undergraduate lecturer on international relations and development, as well as a sports broadcaster.

Summer internship

During the summer, I worked as a consultant operations analyst with the World Bank Group’s Country Management Unit for West Bank and Gaza, initially based out of the headquarters. and later at the World Bank Country Office in Jerusalem. During this time, I was able to contribute to the country team having their replenishment request for financing approved for the new fiscal year, ensuring the health of the World Bank portfolio, in a context that is extremely challenging. This entailed completing a suite of corporate requirements to make a convincing pitch to the Board of Executive Directors. In Jerusalem, I supported the finalization of an upcoming poverty assessment and had the opportunity to support the team in monitoring and developing the future pipeline of several projects in the West Bank. I also engaged in field visits, notably learning about World Bank support to the Palestinian Heritage Trail. As a member of a team based in the HQ, I was pleased that I got to build a stronger connection with colleagues, understand their own unique challenges working in the context, so that I could support them better.